We Resist: Day 865

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: A Second Migrant Woman Has Died in U.S. Custody and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

[Content Note: Gun violence; death; video may autoplay at link] Madeline Holcombe, Holly Yan, and Mark Morales at CNN: New Details Emerge in the Virginia Beach Mass Shooting That Left 12 People Dead. "We now know the man who gunned down 12 people at a Virginia Beach office resigned the morning of the attack. But many more questions remain as to why a veteran city engineer targeted people he'd worked with for years. DeWayne Craddock, 40, fired indiscriminately on a municipal building Friday afternoon. He was fatally wounded in a lengthy shootout with police." The piece is a good summary of what information is known at this time, which doesn't include the shooter's motive. The victims are also listed at the link. My sincerest condolences to their families, friends, coworkers, and community. I am so sorry.

Unless a politician's thought is "I need to draft legislation that prevents access to these killing machines" and their prayer is "please, god, let it pass," I don't want to hear about any thoughts and prayers anymore.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 18, 2018

Andrew Kirell at the Daily Beast: Trump on Gun 'Silencers' Like One Used in Virginia Beach Shooting: 'I Don't Like Them at All'. "[Donald] Trump on Monday morning condemned gun 'silencers' like the one police say the Virginia Beach shooter attached to his handgun while killing 12 people last Friday evening. 'The suspect in the Virginia Beach shooting used a silencer on his weapon. Do you believe that silencers should be restricted?' a reporter asked Trump outside the White House, as the president departed for a U.K. visit. 'I don't like them at all,' Trump replied, according to a pool report." But is he going to do anything about them?! Of course not.

[CN: Flooding; death; displacement] Chris McGreal at the Guardian: 'So Much Land Under So Much Water': Extreme Flooding Is Drowning Parts of the Midwest.

Weeks of flooding is drowning large parts of the midwest, wrecking communities and turning farms into inland seas. On top of that, a near record number of tornadoes has whipped through the region, smashing homes and claiming nearly 40 lives so far. All of this comes after the wettest 12 months in the US since records began.

Storms and near record rainfall have caused the region's three major rivers to flood, inundating communities from Nebraska to Michigan and Illinois to Oklahoma, driving tens of thousands in to shelters, shutting businesses, and closing interstate highways.

Waters that used to surge and recede have stayed around, swamping millions of acres of farmland and devastating the planting season. The amount of land farmers are being prevented from sowing by the water is estimated to be as much as double the previous record of 3m acres of corn, set in 2013. The worst-hit states include Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Indiana.

In Nebraska, where farmers are already grappling with the effects of Donald Trump's trade war with China, which has killed off a good part of the soybean trade, flooding is estimated to have destroyed $1bn-worth of crops and livestock.

In Iowa, bordered on either side by America's two greatest rivers, the Mississippi and the Missouri, entire towns have been engulfed and some may never revive. At the weekend, levees failed on three rivers, flooding homes and forcing the evacuation of thousands in Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas.

This should be dominating the news, given its unfathomable scope, but it isn't. And I believe a significant part of the reason why it's not getting more coverage is that the president isn't relentlessly tweeting about it. He's barely said a word about it.

It's meant to be the job of the president to care about and call the nation's attention to stuff like this. The for-profit coastal media can't profit handsomely from a story like this, so they mostly ignore it, unless and until the president's attention demands reporting.

It's absolutely chilling how quickly we've become a nation in which the press only cares about what this president does. That's a red flag about how deeply authoritarian a state we already are.

[CN: Nativism; child abuse; self-harm] Monique Q. Madan at the Miami Herald: No Hugs, Kids Cutting Themselves: Court Gets Unprecedented Peek Inside Homestead Shelter. "A 705-page court document filed by lawyers who spent substantial time inside Homestead's detention center for unaccompanied minors says the migrant children held there [2,350 and counting] are subjected to 'prison-like' regimens, potentially sustaining permanent psychological damage due to isolation from loved ones. Based on interviews with detainees, the filing describes dumbfounded and despairing children, cut off from their relatives except for phone calls, enduring 'military-camp' style conditions and stays that often stretch into months." Rage. Seethe. Boil. What the fuck are we doing. Goddammit.

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Jill Heaviside and Rosann Mariappuram at Rewire.News: The Escalation of Anti-Abortion Violence Ten Years After Dr. George Tiller's Murder. "As we mark the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, it is incredible to think that, just over a month ago, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse was really asking how 'the pro-life position is in any way violent.' Violence has been a central tenet of the anti-abortion movement since before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. As activists have sought control over the reproductive freedom of millions of people — particularly women of color, low-income women and families, and queer, gender-nonconforming, and transgender communities — they have used violence as a tactic of control, abuse, and fear across the United States."

Read this thread.

Elaine Chao is Mitch McConnell’s wife and Trump’s Secretary of Transportation.

The corruption is immense. https://t.co/hEKQV2LO9a

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) June 3, 2019

[CN: Privacy violations] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Quest Diagnostics Admits 12 Million Patients May Have Had Medical Data Breached. "Nearly 12 million people may have had their personal, financial, and medical information breached, Quest Diagnostics has admitted. Quest, one of the biggest blood testing providers in the country, said it believes someone had gained unauthorized access to the systems of AMCA, which is a billing collections vendor. 'Information on AMCA's affected system included financial information (e.g., credit card numbers and bank account information), medical information, and other personal information (e.g., Social Security Numbers),' Quest said in a filing, according to NBC News." Fucking hell.

* * *

Donald Trump is on a state trip to the UK, and he is, as always, an international embarrassment.

Josh Israel at ThinkProgress: Trump's Insult of Meghan Markle Is Right out of His Tired Playbook.

Eric Lutz at Vanity Fair: Trump Launches UK Trip by Calling London Mayor a "Stone Cold Loser".

Obviously, Brits are taking kindly to his shit, so the Trump Baby Blimp is back and a giant penis was mown into a field along Trump's flight path.

* * *

Jared Kushner is on quite a roll.

Josh Wingrove and Kim Chipman at Bloomberg: Kushner Questions Whether Palestinians Can Govern Themselves.

Jonathan Swan at Axios: Kushner Unsure Whether He'd Alert FBI If Russians Request Another Meeting.

Jamiles Lartey at the Guardian: Trump 'Absolutely Not' a Racist, Insists Kushner.

This fucking guy.

* * *

[CN: Sexual abuse] Julia Alexander at the Verge: YouTube Won't Stop Recommending Videos with Children, Despite Ped0philia Problem. "A new report from the New York Times found that, despite evidence from independent researchers that YouTube's algorithm helps videos of children spread among predatory circles, YouTube's teams don't want to turn off recommendations because it would hurt creators by reducing traffic driven to their videos." In other words, it would hurt YouTube's profits, so OH WELL.

[CN: Sexual abuse] Kate Briquelet at the Daily Beast: Feds Are Asking Jeffrey Epstein's Victims About Sex-Trafficking Crimes. "Eleven years after billionaire Jeffrey Epstein received what amounted to a country-club jail sentence for allegedly molesting dozens of girls in Florida, his victims could be closer to justice — with a possible future federal prosecution beyond Palm Beach. ...[I]n February of this year, a federal judge ruled the non-prosecution agreement (NPA), which was concealed from the victims and their counsel, violated the law, specifically the Crime Victims' Rights Act. Now the feds are contacting victims to discuss possible remedies. During these meetings, the government is reportedly asking one question in particular: Did Epstein’s abuse ever cross state lines?"

[CN: Homophobia] Quimby at Celebitchy: Rocketman Edited in Russia to Cut All Gay Scenes Due to 'Homosexual Propaganda' Law. "Russian film critic Anton Dolin reported that 'all scenes with kissing, sex, and oral sex between men have been cut out' and that the movie's 'final caption' explained that Elton 'established an [AIDS] foundation and continues to work with his musical partner.' Both notable accomplishments, to be sure, but the original caption mentions Elton's marriage to David Furnish and their children. On Friday, Elton and the other filmmakers released a statement condemning the decision. Russia's 'homosexual propaganda' law was signed by Putin in 2013 under the auspices of protecting children. However it has the opposite effect, particularly on LGBT youth, who are denied access to support services and to representation of gay people in media under this law. The law also contributes to a rampant anti-gay culture and to violence and discrimination."

And speaking of violent, homophobic dictators whom Donald Trump adores... [CN: Homophobia] Julia Hollingsworth at CNN: Philippine President Duterte Says He 'Used to Be Gay' Before He 'Cured' Himself. "After accusing his political opponent and vocal critic Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV of being gay, Duterte said he could sense he himself was also 'a bit gay' while married to his ex-wife, Elizabeth Zimmerman. Their marriage was annulled in 2000. Duterte went on to say that he was 'cured' after meeting current partner Honeylet Avanceña. 'I became a man again! So beautiful women cured me,' Duterte said. 'I hated handsome men afterwards. I now prefer beautiful women.' Duterte has a history of making controversial and contradictory remarks about the LGBT community." JFC.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 840

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Donald Trump Is Voraciously Bloodthirsty and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism] When you have a president who engages in stochastic terrorism and repeatedly says things like "Democrats are aggressively pushing late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother's womb, right up until the moment of birth," following literal decades of his party demonizing abortion, people who get abortions, and doctors who provide abortions, this (and worse) is what inevitably happens: Auditi Guha at Rewire.News: In Alabama, an Anti-Choice Protester Tried to Run Over an Abortion Clinic Escort.

It was a day like any other at the West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa. In a nondescript office park, abortion clinic escorts shielded incoming patients from the graphic signs and verbal abuse of anti-choice protesters gathered across the clinic’s private parking lot.

On Tuesday around 8:15 a.m., a Toyota SUV that had been spray-painted black pulled into the lot. There, the driver exchanged words with a volunteer escort before backing the SUV into her side. She yelled at the driver to get away from her. He yelled back, threatening to hit her a second time, then put the car in reverse again to do so. She moved out of the way; the driver swung the vehicle around and left.

...[Helmi Henkin — chair of the clinic escort group West Alabama Clinic Defenders and Alabama's only statewide abortion fund, the Yellowhammer Fund] recognized the suspect as an anti-choice person who had previously threatened clinic escorts. But Tuscaloosa police did not take their previous reports seriously, Henkin said.

...The attack comes as Alabama Republicans are trying to pass HB 314, a bill to criminalize abortion providers. Dubbed the "Human Life Protection Act," the bill passed the GOP-controlled house last Tuesday. Nearly all Democratic house members walked out in protest.

The anti-choice bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform abortions at any stage of pregnancy, unless the person's life is in danger. A doctor caught performing an abortion would face up to 99 years in prison; attempted abortion would carry a sentence of up to ten years.

Anti-choice terrorism is one of the most common forms of terrorism in the United States, and it's also one of the least discussed. The political press renders it almost entirely invisible, despite the fact that it is brazenly waged, the coordination and orchestration done right out in the open. It is an inherently violent ideology, backed by a decades-long campaign of intimidation, harassment, and violence directed at abortion providers and abortion seekers. And the sitting president is actively stoking the flames.

* * *

Paul Farhi at the Washington Post: White House Imposes New Rules on Reporters' Credentials, Raising Concerns About Access.

The White House has implemented new rules that it says will cut down on the number of journalists that hold "hard" passes, the credentials that allow reporters and technicians to enter the grounds without seeking daily permission.

The new policy has been met with some confusion and even worry among journalists, some of whom suspect that the ultimate aim is to keep critics in the press away from the White House and [Donald] Trump.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders explicitly denied that, saying the changes were prompted by security concerns, not to punish journalists. "No one's access is being limited," she said Wednesday night.

Yeah, well, she's a professional liar, so.

I guess now that it's clear there are no penalties for GOP lawbreaking, they think it's safe for Don Jr. to come and lie under oath. https://t.co/YIKUsgVPZI

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 8, 2019

Wesley Morgan at Politico: McMaster Blasts Former Colleagues as 'Danger to the Constitution'. "Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster accused some of his former White House colleagues on Wednesday of being 'a danger to the Constitution' because they are either trying to manipulate [Donald] Trump to push their own agenda or see themselves as rescuing the country from what they view as the commander in chief's bad policy choices." Looks like someone has a book to sell!

Funny how all these Trump sycophants are supposedly great patriots who totes care about what's best for the country once they're looking for new sources of income.

* * *


Courtney Kube at NBC News: U.S. Officials: Iran Official Okayed Attacks on American Military. "The U.S. decision to surge additional military forces into the Middle East was based in part on intelligence that the Iranian regime has told some of its proxy forces and surrogates that they can now go after American military personnel and assets in the region, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. ...Among the specific threats the U.S. military is now tracking, officials say, are possible missile attacks by Iranian dhows, or small ships, in the Persian Gulf; attacks in Iraq by Iranian-trained Shiite militia groups; and attacks against U.S. ships by the Houthi rebels in Yemen." As I noted yesterday, this intel is being inflated by warmongering pigshits who want a war with Iran.

Tim Kelly at Reuters: U.S., Japan, India, and Philippines Challenge Beijing with Naval Drills in the South China Sea. "In fresh show of naval force in the contested South China Sea, a U.S. guided missile destroyer conducted drills with a Japanese aircraft carrier, two Indian naval ships, and a Philippine patrol vessel in the waterway claimed by China, the U.S. Navy said on Thursday. While similar exercises have been held in the South China Sea in the past, the combined display by four countries represents a fresh challenge to Beijing as [Donald] Trump threatens to hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods."

Choe Sang-Hun at the New York Times: North Korea Fires Two Short-Range Ballistic Missiles, South's Military Says. "North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, the South Korean military said, an escalation from the North's most recent weapons test just five days ago. The two missiles were launched eastward from the country's northwest, with one flying 260 miles and the other about 170 miles, the military said in a statement. ...The statement did not say where the missiles had landed, but the reported distances would put them in the sea between North Korea and Japan."

Pete Williams, Tom Winter, and Dan De Luce at NBC News: U.S. Seizes North Korean Ship Suspected of Violating U.N. Sanctions. "The Justice Department asked a federal judge Thursday to give the U.S. ownership of a North Korean freighter that was caught shipping coal in violation of U.N. sanctions. ...[T]he U.S. sought a civil forfeiture action — the same thing prosecutors do when they seek to take ownership of planes or boats used by drug smugglers. The Justice Department says the U.S. is entitled to take this action because payments to maintain and equip the vessel were made through American banks."

* * *

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Christina Zdanowicz at CNN: A Student Sued Because He Didn't Want the Chickenpox Vaccine; Then He Got Chickenpox. "Jerome Kunkel sued the local [Walton, Kentucky] health department because of a policy temporarily barring students who aren't immune against chickenpox from coming to classes and extracurricular activities... The high school senior refused the vaccine, citing his faith. Kunkel's father, Bill, told CNN affiliate WLWT they object to the particular vaccine because he believed it was derived from 'aborted fetuses.' The chickenpox vaccine was created using cells descended from those of a fetus terminated in the early 1960s. ...Kunkel contracted chickenpox last week and has recovered [and returned] to school on Wednesday [after being out since mid-March]. 'Jerome is in a catch-up mode,' [his attorney] said. 'He feels like they kind of ruined his senior year.'" Whooooops!

Deanna Paul at the Washington Post: GOP State Legislator Attacks Vaccine Scientist on Twitter, Accusing Him of Self-Enrichment, 'Sorcery'. "A Texas state legislator unleashed a vilifying attack on a leading vaccine scientist Tuesday, accusing the doctor of 'sorcery.' ...[Peter Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine] took his concerns about [a report published Monday by the Texas Department of State Health Services that noted the state recorded a 14 percent rise in parents opting out of their children's vaccinations] to Twitter. And then he received an unexpected, seething personal attack from the Republican state legislator, Rep. Jonathan Stickland." JFC.

Meanwhile... [CN: Christian Supremacy] Julie Zauzmer at the Washington Post: A Conservative Christian Group Is Pushing Bible Classes in Public Schools Nationwide — and It's Working. "Activists on the religious right, through their legislative effort Project Blitz, drafted a law that encourages Bible classes in public schools and persuaded at least 10 state legislatures to introduce versions of it this year. Georgia and Arkansas recently passed bills that are awaiting their governors' signatures. Among the powerful fans of these public-school Bible classes: [Donald] Trump. 'Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible,' Trump tweeted in January. 'Starting to make a turn back? Great!'" Seethe.

Trump literally *just* threatened to veto H.R. 986, the "Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019," the other day. https://t.co/6DTR4YX0qk

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 9, 2019

Adam Gabbatt at the Guardian: Facebook Co-Founder Calls for Company to Break Up over 'Unprecedented' Power.

A co-founder of Facebook has called for the government to break-up the company, warning that Mark Zuckerberg's power is "unprecedented and un-American."

Chris Hughes, who helped established Facebook after meeting Zuckerberg at Harvard University, wrote in the New York Times that Facebook's acquisition of rival platforms had given Zuckerberg unparalleled power over speech.

"Mark's influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day," Hughes wrote.

"We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook."

Yep.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 837

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late Friday and earlier today by me: The Collusion Is Still Right out in the Open and The Trump Regime Wants a War with Iran and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Nancy Pelosi's “coldblooded” plan for defeating President Trump, who she worries would challenge a slim Democratic victory in 2020, focuses on moderate voters and avoiding a protracted impeachment bid https://t.co/0ZdhgAc80Z

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) May 6, 2019

DISAGREE.

At this point, you can safely assume that I strongly disagree with any approach that is not impeachment. And, yes, I am aware that there are political risks to that strategy, and, yes, I am aware that impeachment hearings would not result in Donald Trump's removal from office, so long as the Republican majority in the Senate refuses to do the goddamn job they were elected to do as defined by the Constitution.

I am not persuaded to demur from advocating doing the right thing by these arguments. It is ethical and necessary to hold impeachment hearings for Donald Trump and Bill Barr. That's all that matter to me at this point.

Speaking of Barr... House Judiciary Dems at Medium: Wednesday: House Judiciary to Markup Contempt Report for AG Barr.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee noticed a markup of a contempt report for Attorney General William Barr's failure to comply with a duly issued subpoena to provide Congress with the full, unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report along with underlying evidence. The contempt markup is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 10 a.m.

..."The Attorney General's failure to comply with our subpoena, after extensive accommodation efforts, leaves us no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings in order to enforce the subpoena and access the full, unredacted report. If the Department presents us with a good faith offer for access to the full report and the underlying evidence, I reserve the right to postpone these proceedings," [wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler in a statement].

Don't make any deals. Set the deadline. If the Department of Justice fails to deliver exactly what's been demanded by that date, hold Barr in contempt. And then move forward with impeachment hearings. DO YOUR JOBS.

Meanwhile... Trump is losing his shit on Twitter at the news that Special Counsel Bob Mueller made preliminary, tentative plans to appear before a House Committee:

....to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

"Bob Mueller should not testify." This president and his Attorney General are publicly obstructing justice. That is why we need impeachment hearings. Does the rule of law matter in this country or doesn't it?!

And of course Trump didn't stop there.

Isaac Stanley-Becker at the Washington Post: Claiming Two Years of His Presidency Were 'Stolen,' Trump Suggests He's Owed Overtime. Not overtime pay, mind you. More time in office.

[Trump] retweeted a proposal offered by Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, that he be granted another two years in office as recompense for time lost to the Russia investigation. Half of his first term, Trump wrote in a Twitter dispatch of his own, had been "stolen."

[Falwell tweeted:] "After the best week ever for @realDonaldTrump — no obstruction, no collusion, NYT admits @BarackObama did spy on his campaign, & the economy is soaring. I now support reparations — Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup."

Everything about this is disgusting, from making a mockery of the idea of slave reparations to asserting that Trump should grab two more years as president regardless of the will of the voters.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Erica Orden at CNN: Former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen Reports to Prison for Three-Year Term. "[Cohen] reported Monday to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, where he will begin serving a three-year sentence. 'I hope that when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country,' Cohen told a throng of reporters gathered outside his apartment in Manhattan on Monday morning, before ducking into a black Escalade SUV. 'There still remains much to be told,' he added. 'And I look forward to the day that I can share the truth.'"

If Cohen actually gave two shits about "xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country," he would tell the truth now.

Saleha Mohsin at Politico: Mnuchin Juggles Day Job Alongside Shielding Trump's Tax Returns. "On Monday, Mnuchin is expected to hold off on House Democrats' request to release Trump's returns. It's the first time a Treasury chief has had to juggle concerns about releasing a president's personal information with other parts of the job: overseeing the $16 trillion Treasuries market, maintaining economic pressure on global threats, such as North Korea, and leading economic diplomacy with international counterparts. Monday's response will be Mnuchin's third attempt to stave off House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal's request for six years of Trump's personal returns, as well as those of the Trump Organization."

This entire fucking administration. Goddammit.

* * *

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: Arson Attempt, Trespassing, and Harassment: The Consequences of Extreme Anti-Abortion Rhetoric.

No one has ever tried to burn Whole Woman's Health of McAllen down until now, notably during a time when Republican lawmakers have repeatedly accused people who have abortions and their doctors of infanticide, and [Donald] Trump has used his bully pulpit to elevate this lie.

While the president has never explicitly asked his supporters to incite violence, he has graphically accused providers who perform abortion later in pregnancy of murder.

During his 2019 State of the Union address, which had 46.8 million viewers, Trump lied and said a New York law codifying Roe v. Wade would "allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth." Last weekend at a rally, Trump lied again, saying providers and patients weigh whether or not to "execute the baby" after birth.

"This kind of language is an invitation to that radical fringe," said [Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health]. "It pitches women as murderers and providers as murderers and so, I mean, I would think that all of us are against murder, right? And so it's like this call to action," she added.

This is stochastic terrorism.

* * *

Brad Plumer at the New York Times: Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an 'Unprecedented' Pace.

In most major land habitats, from the savannas of Africa to the rain forests of South America, the average abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more, mainly over the past century.

With the human population passing 7 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing, and mining are altering the natural world at a rate "unprecedented in human history."

At the same time, a new threat has emerged: Global warming has become a major driver of wildlife decline, the assessment found, by shifting or shrinking the local climates that many mammals, birds, insects, fish, and plants evolved to survive in.

As a result, biodiversity loss is projected to accelerate through 2050, particularly in the tropics, unless countries drastically step up their conservation efforts.

This is terrifying. Especially because the likelihood of enough major countries "stepping up their conservation efforts" to make a meaningful difference in short order is vanishingly small.

* * *

[CN: War; death] Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill 25, Including Pregnant Women and Children, Before Ceasefire.

Attacks by Israel in the Gaza Strip killed at least 25 people, including children and two pregnant women, over the weekend, ahead of a tentative ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas and the Islamic Jihad on Monday morning.

...The fighting — the worst of its kind between Israel and Gaza since 2014 — appears to have begun on Friday, when two Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers during weekly protests along the Israel-Gaza fence, the Palestinian health ministry said. During those same protests, a Gaza sniper injured two Israeli soldiers. Israel retaliated by killing two Palestinians, identified as Hamas militants. Beginning on Saturday, militants in Gaza launched rockets into Israel, killing four Israelis over the course of the weekend.

According to news reports, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad fired more than 200 rockets toward southern Israel. In return, the Israeli military said it struck 350 militant targets and has denied accounts of the death of a pregnant woman and her infant niece, blaming the killings on attacks by Hamas.

Awful.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Texas Republicans Hold Hearing on Legislation That Would Make Abortion Punishable by Death

[Content Note: War on agency; reproductive coercion.]

This is straight-up terrorism against women and other people who can become pregnant by the Republican caucus in the Texas state legislature: The Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence held a two-day hearing on a bill introduced by GOP state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, which would "criminalize abortion without exception, and make it possible to convict women who undergo the procedure of homicide, which can carry the death penalty in Texas."

Over the course of the two-day hearing, members of the public "rose to ask lawmakers to protect life, describing a 'genocide' and foreseeing the arrival of 'God's wrath,'" as they petitioned legislators to take up the bill introduced by Tinderholt, "who has been married five times [and] argues that the measure is necessary to make women 'more personally responsible.'"

It was the first time in the state's history, committee members said, that public testimony had been heard on a measure holding women criminally liable for their abortions. The legislation was left pending on Tuesday, as Democrats claimed there was a contradiction in the agenda advanced by its supporters, who call themselves "pro-life."

"I'm trying to reconcile in my head the arguments that I heard tonight about how essentially one is okay with subjecting a woman to the death penalty for the exact — to do to her the exact same thing that one is alleging she is doing to a child," said state Rep. Victoria Neave, a Democrat who represents part of Dallas County.

Not only is this bullshit terroristic and hypocritical in the extreme; it is also reproductive coercion. What could be more coercive than forcing a person to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term under the threat of death?

There are people who accuse me of hyperbole when I call the Republican Party a white supremacist patriarchal death cult, but I stand the fuck by it, and this shit is a perfect, terrible example of why.

Open Wide...

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DHS Intelligence and Analysis Unit Focusing on Domestic Terror Has Been Disbanded

[Content Note: Terrorism; rightwing extremism; white supremacy.]

This is very bad: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has disbanded an Intelligence and Analysis unit whose members had focused on domestic terrorism, including white supremacist violence.

Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast reports:

Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism — including white supremacist terrorism — is growing.

In the wake of this move, officials said the number of analytic reports produced by DHS about domestic terrorism, including the threat from white supremacists, has dropped significantly. People in and close to the department said this has generated significant concern at headquarters.

"It's especially problematic given the growth in right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism we are seeing in the U.S. and abroad," one former intelligence official told The Daily Beast.

The group in question was a branch of analysts in DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). They focused on the threat from homegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorists. The analysts there shared information with state and local law enforcement to help them protect their communities from these threats.

Then the Trump administration's new I&A chief, David Glawe, began reorganizing the office, which is the DHS component that has a place in the Intelligence Community. Over the course of the reorganization, the branch of I&A focused on domestic terrorism got eighty-sixed and its analysts were reassigned to new positions. The change happened last year, and has not been previously reported.

"We've noticed I&A has significantly reduced their production on homegrown violent extremism and domestic terrorism while those remain among the most serious terrorism threats to the homeland," said one DHS official.

Woodruff also quotes local law enforcement who say that the information they used to receive from the unit has now dried up.

Presumably, this unit also tracked anti-choice violence, which is one of the longest running domestic terrorist campaigns in the country.

So now we're just flying blind(er) on rightwing extremist violence, including and especially anti-choice and white supremacist terrorism.

That, of course, is not an accident. That is a design. Because malice is the agenda.

One assumes Donald Trump and his deplorable henchmen won't be mad if their decision to allow domestic terrorism to flourish in the darkness of inattention also results in dramatic acts of public violence that justify the expansion of authoritarian policy, under the auspices of security and "protecting" us.

If they were actually interested in protecting us, they wouldn't have disbanded a unit charged with doing precisely that.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Today in Anti-Choice Terrorism

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]

Anti-choice terrorism is one of the most common forms of terrorism in the United States, and it's also one of the least discussed. The political press renders it almost entirely invisible. Yet another attack on a clinic should be front page news and an urgent subject of discussion on cable news, but, yet again, it isn't.

Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast reports:

A Missouri man was charged Monday in federal court after surveillance video allegedly showed him setting fire to a Planned Parenthood Clinic last month in Columbia.

Wesley Kaster, 42, was arrested Saturday on arson charges, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

Kaster is accused of placing a "seemingly heavy" bucket inside the building and then throwing a "Molotov cocktail-type device" in the early morning hours of Feb. 10, 2019. Kaster was recorded leaving the area and returning around 4 a.m., and minutes later, the footage showed smoke billowing from the broken glass door of the building.

The fire was completely extinguished by a sprinkler system before officials from the Columbia Fire Department arrived, but authorities noted that a glass wall had been shattered and that "an accelerant fueled the fire that was set inside," according to the criminal complaint. Investigators recovered two five-gallon buckets of gasoline near the remains of a Molotov cocktail.

It's very fortunate that no one was harmed.

The same weekend that Kaster was arrested, Donald Trump and Mike Pence appeared at CPAC, where Trump was repeatedly declared the "most pro-life president in American history" and Pence smeared Democrats as supporters of "infanticide."

This, too, is a result of the Trump Regime's campaign of stochastic terrorism. Calling abortionists "baby killers" and "murderers" over and over and over has demonstrably caused people to take up arms against them. The Trump Regime didn't start the violent anti-choice campaign of terror, but they are promoting and empowering it every chance they get.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 691

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Help Wanted: Vile Person to Facilitate Agenda of Malice and "It's about undermining key pillars of democracy and the rule of law."

Here are some more things in the news today...

TIME’s 2018 Person of the Year is… “The Guardians and the War on Truth.” pic.twitter.com/fyMlpUQ5Ph

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 11, 2018

There are many journalists who are doing crucial resistance work (even those whose work is not explicitly positioned as part of the resistance), and I support them mightily.

* * *

44 Former U.S. Senators at the Washington Post: We Are Former Senators; the Senate Has Long Stood in Defense of Democracy — and Must Again. "We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld. ...At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time. Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings, or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest."

Okay. Sounds good! But what does that mean? What constitutes being "steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy"? And why is this letter coming now and not in, say, October of 2016?

I'll also note that, despite the fact that this letter from 44 former U.S. Senators is being lauded as bipartisan, the actual composition of its signers is: 32 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 2 Independents.

Which, I've got to be honest, sounds a lot more to me like a handful of opportunistic Republicans piggybacked onto a bunch of principled Democrats in order to try to distance themselves from Trump. Because I see 10 names of Republicans who happily participated in the conservative movement in ways that made Trump inevitable.

* * *

[Content Note: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Mariam Khan at ABC News: Trump Says Military Will Build Border Wall If Pelosi, Schumer Don't Agree to Pay for It.

Trump drew some rhetorical lines in the sand in early morning tweets Tuesday — repeating a series of questionable claims.

He again pushed to make good on his campaign promise to build what he's now calling a "Great Wall." He continued to attack Democrats for wanting "open borders," despite Democrats agreeing to spend billions of dollars for border security to repair or replace existing fencing — but not for Trump's proposed wall.

He claimed that "large new sections" of his wall had been built although that is not the case, and he touted success in barring the "large Caravans" of Central American migrants seeking refugee that Trump used to gin up fears about illegal immigration leading up to the 2018 midterm elections.

In another tweet, he claimed that if Democrats don't agree to funding, the military will build the wall. "If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!" Trump tweeted.

Fucking hell. Trump then met with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, where he behaved like an absolute shitwheel, as usual, in front of the press, despite Pelosi's requests to meet privately.

I have never seen anything like this in my life. pic.twitter.com/uy7EiGDOsK

— Matt Rogers 🦅 (@Politidope) December 11, 2018

[Video Description: Trump screams about shutting down the government while Chuck Schumer smiles and nods in the way that you humor someone who has totally lost the plot, simultaneously communicating to everyone else that it's obviously impossible to have a serious conversation with the screaming dipshit.]

Trump is almost impossible to manage in those situations (which is precisely why he orchestrates them that way), but, in my estimation, Pelosi and Schumer handled themselves well given circumstances that favor Trump's cacophonous unprofessionalism.

Right on, @NancyPelosi. https://t.co/7qQwtS9eiY

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

Trump asks Schumer if he wants to say something, and Schumer essentially says, "Yeah, you're a fucking liar." LOLOLOLOLOL. https://t.co/v8zL2ViImb

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

I asked Leader Pelosi and Sen Schumer just now at WH whether they were able to have the “evidence based” conversation that Pelosi repeatedly said she wanted to have with Trump. Both gave me stern looks and Pelosi said, “That’s another subject.” I’ll take that as a no from both.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 11, 2018

* * *

[CN: War; death; injury; trauma; starvation; self-harm] Marwan Al-Sabri, Ali Al-Makhaathi, and Hadil Al-Senwi at the Guardian: Yemenis Are Left So Poor They Kill Themselves Before the Hunger Does. "More than 10,000 people in Yemen have been killed and 3 million forced to flee their homes as a result of almost four years of fighting. An estimated 22 million people are now in need of aid and up to 13 million face starvation. As talks to end the conflict continue in Sweden, three Yemeni aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council talk of the physical and emotional destruction the fighting has brought to their country. ...'War brings out the worst in a society. People are subjected to extortion, threats, and detention at checkpoints. The violence has destroyed our social fabric and created smaller conflicts. It has eroded us materially and morally; we have lost the right to live safely and with dignity.'"

When I saw @olgaNYC1211 tweeting about this earlier, the (not ha-ha) funny thing is that I had just been thinking about Pence's fascination with Venezuela and how that might play out if he becomes president. https://t.co/ahvQ6eKTFT

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 10, 2018

[CN: White supremacy; misogyny; anti-choice terrorism; fascism] Elizabeth King and Erin Corbett at Rewire.News: Fascists Find Fertile Recruitment Ground in Anti-Choice Movement. "Attacks on reproductive rights are nothing new, but fascist groups' infiltration of anti-choice groups and recruiting around anti-choice organizing in their genocidal agenda is an escalation. Leaked conversations between white supremacist groups using the Discord messaging site show users discussing recruiting members based on their opposition to abortion rights. ...Under the Trump administration, a surge in white nationalist organizing and policies has meant an uptick in threats against abortion providers and clinics, creating an even more unsafe environment for patients as Republican lawmakers further erode their rights. Threats of violence against abortion clinics have nearly doubled since 2017, and trespassing incidents have more than tripled, according to data compiled by the National Abortion Federation."

[CN: Sexual violence; abuse by clergy]

[TW] Sex abuse by clergy isn't only a problem in the Catholic Church. It's endemic, and systematically covered up, in evangelical communities, too. https://t.co/ex0a55mWBy

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

Gary Fineout at the AP: Thousands of Mailed Ballots in Florida Were Not Counted. "Florida officials say thousands of mailed ballots were not counted because they were delivered too late to state election offices. The Department of State late last week informed a federal judge that 6,670 ballots were mailed ahead of the Nov. 6 election but were not counted because they were not received by Election Day. The tally prepared by state officials includes totals from 65 of Florida's 67 counties. The two counties yet to report their totals are Palm Beach, a Democratic stronghold in south Florida, and Polk in central Florida. Three statewide Florida races, including the contest for governor, went to state-mandated recounts because the margins were so close."

Zoe Tillman at BuzzFeed: A Former Trump Campaign Staffer Was Ordered to Pay $25,000 for Violating Her Nondisclosure Agreement. "Jessica Denson, a former staffer for [Donald] Trump's campaign, is fighting an order to pay nearly $25,000 for violating a nondisclosure agreement, according to court papers. The award to the Trump campaign came out of arbitration — nonpublic proceedings the campaign pursued against Denson after she filed two lawsuits against it. ...Denson sued the campaign in New York County Supreme Court in November 2017, claiming that officials discriminated against her, cyberbullied her, and were otherwise hostile toward her... But the Trump campaign claimed Denson's lawsuit violated the terms of her nondisclosure agreement, which prohibited her from disclosing confidential information, disparaging the campaign, competing with the campaign, or violating its intellectual property." Chilling.

Richard Partington at the Guardian: IMF Warns Storm Clouds Are Gathering for Next Financial Crisis. "The storm clouds of the next global financial crisis are gathering despite the world financial system being unprepared for the next downturn, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. David Lipton, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, said that 'crisis prevention is incomplete' more than a decade on from the last meltdown in the global banking system. 'As we have put it, 'fix the roof while the sun shines.' But like many of you, I see storm clouds building, and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete.'" Swell.

Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger at ProPublica: How the IRS Was Gutted. "Had the billions in budget reductions occurred all at once, with tens of thousands of auditors, collectors, and customer service representatives streaming out of government buildings in a single day, the collapse of the IRS might have gotten more attention. But there have been no mass layoffs or dramatic announcements. Instead, it's taken eight years to bring the agency that funds the government this low. Over time, the IRS has slowly transformed, one employee departure at a time. The result is a bureaucracy on life support and tens of billions in lost government revenue. ProPublica estimates a toll of at least $18 billion every year, but the true cost could easily run tens of billions of dollars higher. ...The last time the IRS had fewer than 10,000 revenue agents was 1953, when the economy was a seventh of its current size. And the IRS is still shrinking. Almost a third of its remaining employees will be eligible to retire in the next year, and with morale plummeting, many of them will."

* * *

[CN: Environmental neglect and climate change. Covers entire section.]

Coral Davenport at the New York Times: Trump Prepares to Unveil a Vast Reworking of Clean Water Protections. "The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to unveil a plan that would weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants. Environmentalists say the proposal represents a historic assault on wetlands regulation at a moment when Mr. Trump has repeatedly voiced a commitment to 'crystal-clean water.' The proposed new rule would chip away at safeguards put in place a quarter century ago... The clean water rollback is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration to weaken or undo major environmental rules, including proposals to weaken regulations on planet-warming emissions from cars, power plants, and oil and gas drilling rigs; a series of moves designed to speed new drilling in the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and efforts to weaken protections under the Endangered Species Act."

Yessenia Funes at Earther: The Trump Administration Is Spinning Its Latest Pro-Coal Policy as Good for People of Color.

The Environmental Protection Agency is using energy affordability among low-income communities and people of color as an argument to bring back coal. Yes, the same coal responsible for an estimated 3,000 American deaths a year.

Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a new proposal Thursday that would repeal Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

...What's perhaps most misleading about Thursday's announcement, however, is the EPA's framing around how deregulating coal plants will somehow make energy more affordable and, in doing so, help disadvantaged communities. The administration loves to tout fossil fuels as a pathway to freedom and prosperity, and today's announcement was no different.

"Affordable energy benefits low and middle-income Americans the most, particularly disadvantaged and underserved communities," Wheeler said, during the announcement.

...Energy poverty is a very real thing, especially in low-income, black, and Latinx communities. Families that make $25,000 a year will spend more than 7 percent of their annual earnings on electricity bills, according to a 2016 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A household earning $90,000 a year, on the other hand, will spend just 2 percent on energy. Latinx and black homes especially feel this burden, per the report.

However, more coal won't fix this, especially in a world of cheap natural gas. If the U.S. government really wanted to save people money, it would develop policies that offer bill assistance and encourage retrofitting housing stock to make buildings more energy efficient. Old, dilapidated apartment units with poor insulation are the problem, per that report. So are inefficient household appliances, like fridges and dishwashers. People who rent don't always decide what fridge comes with their apartment.

Investing in renewable energy can also help give low-income communities a boost, said Mustafa Ali, former EPA environmental justice chair, to Earther. Solar and wind don't add to health costs or the detriment of our planet. Instead, they create new jobs.

"By moving in a different direction and a direction focused on renewable energy, we can actually help our most vulnerable communities move to a thriving position," Ali told Earther.

Wheeler's proposal, meanwhile, could cause the air quality in and around many of impoverished communities to take a hit.

Chris Mooney at the Washington Post: The Arctic Is in Even Worse Shape Than You Realize. "Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's annual Arctic Report Card. The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself." Goddamn.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 679

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Cohen Reaches New Plea Deal with Mueller and Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food and Russian Aggression Toward Ukraine Continues.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Maegan Vazquez at CNN: Trump Abruptly Cancels Planned Putin Meeting. "Donald Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was scheduled to occur during a G20 meeting in Buenos Aires. 'Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting [...] in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin. I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!' Trump tweeted en route to the summit."

Whatever the reason Trump canceled this meeting, it isn't because he suddenly started giving a fuck about Ukraine.

* * *

Harry Litman at the Washington Post: The Stunning Implications of the Manafort-Trump Pipeline.

Finally, the open pipeline between cooperator Manafort and suspect Trump may have been not only extraordinary but also criminal. On Manafort and Downing's end, there is a circumstantial case for obstruction of justice. What purpose other than an attempt to "influence, obstruct, or impede" the investigation of the president can be discerned from Manafort's service as a double agent? And on the Trump side, the communications emit a strong scent of illegal witness tampering (and possibly obstruction as well).

Proving those charges would require a fight. The lawyers would be expected to assert privilege, and cries of overreach would sound from the White House and pro-Trump journalists. Whitaker could impede or countermand the effort.

But it's critical to understand the stakes of the battle. Even more than the president's potential criminal liability, there is a set of burning questions about exactly what happened in 2016, the extent to which Russian efforts to influence the presidential election found purchase in the United States, and what part was played by high-level Trump campaign officials or the president himself.

It is intolerable to consider that the truth of these consequential matters would be smothered and kept from the American people indefinitely. But that's exactly what the president's overall strategy aims to do, and with the support, at least tacitly, of a complicit still-Republican-majority — for now — Congress. Is there no one in the GOP with the guts to stand up to the president and the resolve to see that the truth will out?

Possibly. But I suspect if there is, with the exception of Bob Muller (who is, as far as I know, still a Republican), it's not because they have any respect for the truth, the rule of law, or anything else, but because they are interested in filling the power vacuum that will be left if Trump is removed.

Meanwhile: Kate Sullivan at CNN: Trump Threatens to Declassify 'Devastating' Documents If Democrats 'Want to Play Tough'.

Donald Trump said that if Democrats "want to play tough" when they control the House of Representatives next year, he will declassify documents that will be "devastating" to them.

"If they want to play tough, I will do it," Trump told the New York Post in an interview Wednesday. "They will see how devastating those pages are."

Democrats are poised to launch a series of investigations after winning a majority in the House in November. Democratic-controlled committees are likely to probe a range of issues including Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Michael Cohen's payments to women who say they've had affairs with Trump (allegations he denies), potential obstruction of justice, and Trump's finances.

The President told the Post he wants to save the documents for when he can use them against the Democrats most effectively. "It's much more powerful if I do it then," Trump told the Post, "because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday's news."

It's not clear what documents he is referring to.

It's an escalation of what Trump told reporters on November 7 after Democrats had retaken control of the House during the midterm elections.

During that post-midterm news conference, Trump said that if Democrats start investigating his administration then he would be moving to "a warlike posture."

When asked by a reporter if he would show Democrats that he could could "play that game and investigate" Democrats, Trump said, "Oh, yeah. Better than them."

To be clear: That's just the President of the United States threatening to retributively declassify documents to hurt the opposition party for doing the job they were elected to do of providing checks and balances on the executive branch, currently held by a vengeful crook.

Mueller, if you are in it to win it, then hurry the fuck up before we fall off the authoritarian cliff without a goddamned rope.

Relatedly:

Alderman Burke's law firm represented Trump's businesses for 12 years. https://t.co/d5LHgKLcZP

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 29, 2018

Also potentially related: Melissa Eddy and Amie Tsang at the New York Times: Deutsche Bank Offices Are Searched in Money Laundering Investigation. "One hundred seventy officers searched the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and five other sites in the area early Thursday as part of a money-laundering investigation involving hundreds of millions of euros, prosecutors in Frankfurt said. Two employees, who were not publicly identified but whose ages were given as 50 and 46, and other 'unidentified people in positions of authority' are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros, or more than $350 million."

* * *

[Content Note: Climate change] While Trump continues to blather dangerous nonsense about how his giant brain and magical gut don't believe the grim assessments about climate change, climate change is nonetheless very, terrifyingly real.

Fiona Harvey at the Guardian: Past Four Years Hottest on Record, Data Shows.

Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.

Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years.

The warming trend is unmistakable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century.

"These are more than just numbers," said Elena Manaenkova, the WMO deputy secretary general. "Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life."

Sob.

* * *

[CN: Anti-semitism; terrorism] Trump's campaign of stochastic terrorism continues to inspire acts of hatred and terror. Wes Parnell and John Annese at the New York Daily News: Holocaust Scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University Finds Swastikas Spray-Painted on Her Office Wall. "A Jewish professor and Holocaust scholar at Columbia Teacher's College said she found two swastikas and an anti-Semitic slur spray-painted on her office wall Wednesday. Elizabeth Midlarsky said she first saw the hate symbols, which included the word 'YID' scrawled on a wall outside her office, when she arrived at work at the Ivy League campus at about 1 p.m. 'I walked in the door of my office and found myself staring at a swastika and was absolutely shocked,' Midlarsky said. She said the graffiti also left her students rattled, and in tears."

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Madeleine Schmidt at Rewire.News: 'Nothing Has Changed': Colorado Planned Parenthood Official on Anti-Choice Rhetoric Three Years After Shooting. "It's been three years since a shooter, who would later repeat talking points from an anti-choice propaganda campaign, walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado and killed three people. Dr. Savita Ginde, the clinic's medical director at the time of the shooting, warns the anti-choice movement's violent rhetoric still poses a grave threat to providers and patients who seek reproductive health care. ...The anti-choice movement has been quick to distance itself from overtly violent acts by those opposed to abortion rights, but Ginde asserts the shooting serves as an example of how the movement's intentionally inflammatory rhetoric can lead to a deadly result."

[CN: Homophobia; misogyny] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Gay Firefighter Sues, Says He Was Demoted, Relocated, and Addressed as 'Ms' After Marrying Boyfriend. "A gay firefighter is suing the City of Norfolk, Virginia, alleging discrimination and retaliation based on his sexual orientation. Scott Phillips-Gartner said in the complaint that his chief treated him far less favorably when he learned he was married to a man. The Virginian-Pilot reports: 'The suit alleges Phillips-Gartner was well regarded in the department until October 2014, when he notified the city's human resources department he had married his boyfriend. The suit said Battalion Chief Roger Burris verbally attacked Gartner throughout 2015 and generally treated him less favorably than heterosexual male employees. During a staff meeting that December, he specifically attacked Gartner's sexuality, asking 'Where is Ms. Gartner?''"

[CN: Addiction; self-harm; lack of access to healthcare] I read the following two stories back-to-back, and all I can say, once again, is that I don't know how people who don't treat healthcare as a right live with themselves: 1. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post: U.S. Life Expectancy Declines Again, a Dismal Trend Not Seen Since World War I. 2. Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: U.S. Rate of Uninsured Children Increases for the First Time in Nearly a Decade.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 676

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: The Trump Regime Escalates Its War on Immigrants and Keep Your Eyes on Nick Ayers, Too and Russia Launches New Attack on Ukraine.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Let's start with some good news! Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: Judge Blocks Mississippi's 15-Week Abortion Ban, Rips State's GOP Legislature.

A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked a Mississippi Republican law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks' pregnancy, declaring the measure "unequivocally" unconstitutional.

...U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves took lawmakers to task for the law in a strongly worded opinion that said the ban was obviously unconstitutional but that Mississippi lawmakers enacted it anyway.

"The Court's frustration, in part, is that other states have already unsuccessfully litigated the same sort of ban that is before this Court and the State is aware that this type of litigation costs the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money," Reeves wrote. "No, the real reason we are here is simple. The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade."

"This Court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature," Reeves wrote.

Reeves dismissed the GOP-held Mississippi legislature's claims that the measure was designed to protect "women's health" as "pure gaslighting."

Reeves noted that there is a "sad irony" to the fact that men, who face no risk of pregnancy, are dictating the reproductive rights of others.

"The fact that men, myself included, are determining how women may choose to manage their reproductive health is a sad irony not lost on the Court," Reeves wrote. "As Sarah Weddington argued to the nine men on the Supreme Court in 1971 when representing 'Jane Roe,' 'a pregnancy to a woman is perhaps one of the most determinative aspects of her life.' As a man, who cannot get pregnant or seek an abortion, I can only imagine the anxiety and turmoil a woman might experience when she decides whether to terminate her pregnancy through an abortion."

"Respecting her autonomy demands that this statute be enjoined," he continued.

Right on! Jessica also notes that Reeves' decision means "a nearly identical 15-week ban passed by Republican lawmakers in Louisiana will not go into effect. That law's effective date depended on the outcome of the lawsuit challenging Mississippi's 15-week ban." GOOD.

* * *

[Content Note: Climate change. Covers entire section.]

Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney at the Washington Post: Major Trump Administration Climate Report Says Damage Is 'Intensifying Across the Country'.

The federal government on Friday released a long-awaited report with an unmistakable message: The effects of climate change, including deadly wildfires, increasingly debilitating hurricanes, and heat waves, are already battering the United States, and the danger of more such catastrophes is worsening.

The report's authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans' health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country's infrastructure and natural resources. And while it avoids policy recommendations, the report's sense of urgency and alarm stands in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from [Donald] Trump to tackle the problems, which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.

The congressionally mandated document — the first of its kind issued during the Trump administration — details how climate-fueled disasters and other types of worrisome changes are becoming more commonplace throughout the country and how much worse they could become in the absence of efforts to combat global warming.

...The authors argue that global warming "is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us." And they conclude that humans must act aggressively to adapt to current impacts and mitigate future catastrophes "to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades."

"The impacts we've seen the last 15 years have continued to get stronger, and that will only continue," said Gary Yohe, a professor of economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the report. "We have wasted 15 years of response time. If we waste another five years of response time, the story gets worse."

I have observed many times before that the Bush v. Gore might have been the deadliest Supreme Court decision of all time, and this is precisely why. Of course it isn't certain that we wouldn't have wasted 15 years (and even more) of response time had the decision not halted the recount in Florida and Gore had been allowed to win the election via the completed recount. But it is far more likely, inestimably more likely, that we would be on a completely different course than we are now had our president been the man who has dedicated his life, before and since, to climate change.

Joe Romm at ThinkProgress: White House Admits Trump Climate Policies Will Cost Americans $500 Billion a Year. "The congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) by hundreds of the country's top scientists warns that a do-nothing climate policy will end up costing Americans more than a half-trillion dollars per year in increased sickness and death, coastal property damages, loss of worker productivity, and other damages. Building on a 600-page analysis of climate science from 2017, the NCA details just how dangerous Trump administration's policy of climate inaction is to Americans. ...The White House oversaw the report's review and clearance process — and tried to bury the findings by releasing it at 2 p.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving."

Maddie Stone at Earther: The Trump Administration's Attempt to Bury a New Climate Report on Black Friday Totally Backfired. "No doubt, dropping the second volume of the fourth National Climate Assessment — a nearly 2,000 page report that includes contributions from 13 federal agencies — on Black Friday takes the 'Friday news dump' cliché to new heights. [But by] releasing the report on a very slow news day, the White House might have inadvertently made it easier for publications to [prominently] feature its dire conclusions. ...E&E News climate reporter Scott Waldman told Earther : 'Like any other reporter, I pay closer attention to any document the government doesn't want me to see. My colleagues and I will probably look at it more closely.'" Do that.

* * *

"But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years." https://t.co/qHsWdPTGXz

— WIRED (@WIRED) November 25, 2018

[CN: Drones] Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: Trump Ramped Up Drone Strikes in America's Shadow Wars. "In 2009 and 2010, Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump's drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's — but without a corresponding reputation for robot-delivered bloodshed, or even anyone taking much notice. In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there, according to data provided to The Daily Beast by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the drone-watchers at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London."

[CN: Terrorism] Wesley Lowery, Kimberly Kindy, and Andrew Ba Tran at the Washington Post: In the United States, Right-Wing Violence Is on the Rise. "Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on global terrorism. While the data show a decades-long drop-off in violence by left-wing groups, violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama's presidency — and has surged since [Donald] Trump took office. This year has been especially deadly." That's in no small part because the president is running an aggressive campaign of stochastic terrorism.

[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Jon Swaine at the Guardian: Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Favors Hardline Anti-Abortion Policies. "A review by the Guardian of previously unreported remarks revealed Whitaker has advocated for hardline anti-abortion policies that would drastically reshape laws affecting American women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. Whitaker, a conservative Christian, endorsed 'personhood' bills that would effectively outlaw abortion, and said as a Senate candidate that he would spend every day in Washington pushing anti-abortion policy. He also once said that as a federal prosecutor, he personally disagreed with having to use a clinic protection law against a man who crashed his car into a women's health facility and tried to set it on fire while complaining about abortion."

Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg: Trump's Personal Aide Karem Is Said to Intend to Resign Post. "Donald Trump is losing his personal aide, Jordan Karem, who plans to resign after less than a year on the job, according to people familiar with the matter. Karem serves as Trump's so-called 'bodyman,' an aide who accompanies the president on travel and looks after his personal needs. He's also a Trump confidant, familiar with his moods and thinking. The president relies on him for advice and to relay messages between Trump's advisers inside and outside the White House, the people said. Karem is often the first aide Trump sees in the morning and the last to see him at night. He joined the Trump campaign in July 2015 as an advance staffer before becoming press director for then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence. He became Trump's personal aide in March."

(That's not so much a resistance item as it is something of note. I'm not sure what it means, but I don't think it's insignificant.)

* * *

[CN: Misogyny; sexual harassment]

Gillibrand isn't my top choice for 2020, but this is a phenomenally sexist headline, blaming a woman for the fact that Franken groped eight women.

She wasn't even the only one who said he should resign, FFS. Schumer told him to resign at the same time. https://t.co/Ggaf4YEBPg

— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) November 26, 2018

Related Reading: Gee, This Seems Familiar. See in particular "Step Four."

* * *

[CN: Racism; death; gun violence; police brutality] Miranda Fulmore at NPR: Family Demands Video Release After Alabama Mall Shooting Death.

The family of Emantic "E.J." Bradford Jr., who died Thanksgiving night after he was shot by a police officer working security at an Alabama mall, is calling on the Hoover Police Department to release the mall video, witness videos, and body camera footage of Bradford's death.

Initially, officials said Bradford was engaged in a fight with an 18-year-old at the Riverchase Galleria Mall in Hoover, Ala. when he pulled out a gun and shot the teen. A 12-year-old bystander also was wounded that night. That night, police and city officials hailed the quick response as "heroic."

But officials later retracted the statement saying it was "highly unlikely" that Bradford fired the shots that injured two people.

In a statement early Monday, city and police officials said they can "say with certainty Mr. Bradford brandished a gun during the seconds following the gunshots, which instantly heightened the sense of threat to approaching police officers responding to the chaotic scene." Body camera and other available video was turned over to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department as part of the investigation, and the evidence is now with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

...Bradford's family spoke at a press conference Sunday, accompanied by their attorney, Ben Crump.

Crump says several witnesses have come forward since shooting to say the police officer who killed Bradford didn't give any verbal commands to Bradford before shooting him in the face.

Officials also say the shooter could still be at large. Crump says they offered Bradford no medical assistance after the shooting.

#EJBradford was everything the Right claims to valorize: a soldier, a devoted family man, a “good guy” with a legal gun, likely attempting to use it to stop a mass shooter.

Cops shot and killed him on sight.

If you guessed that he was black, you’re paying attention. https://t.co/qNo9cTdwh0

— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) November 25, 2018

If you're thinking, "Didn't this just happen to someone else?" the answer is yes, and his name was Jemel Roberson.

* * *

And finally: Bernie Sanders continues to make the case for anyone who has ever observed that he's far too brittle (among other negative characteristics) to be an effective president. Gabriel Debenedetti at NYMag: Inside Bernie Sanders's Head.

For a 77-year-old man fixated on the popularity of his ideas and his candidacy — "Harry, have you seen my crowds?" he once asked then-Senator Harry Reid by way of a greeting in the heat of the 2016 campaign — Sanders sometimes finds opportunities like these to enjoy his newfound influence in the Democratic Party. But mostly, he is ill at ease. He talks in private much as he does in front of a microphone, except with a lot more sarcasm. He continues to get angry at Establishment liberals, whose dismissals of how he sees the world he takes personally and judges personally. (He believes their positions and motivations can rarely be disentangled from their funding.) His frustration with the press has only grown. "You mean inside-the-Beltway writers may have missed the point here?" he says to me recently, eyebrows up, when we sit down to talk.

And he still thinks he should be president. He doesn't say this out loud, exactly. "I'm not one of those sons of multimillionaires whose parents told them they were going to become president of the United States," he says. "I don't wake up in the morning with any burning desire that I have to be president." Still, he's pretty certain he's already the country's second-most-important politician, and the logic for running in 2020 is obvious to him: His ideas are the best for the country, a majority of Americans will agree once they're exposed to them, no other national politician has proved to be as uncompromised or effective a messenger of his platform as he is, and no one else seems better positioned to actually win. "If there's somebody else who appears who can, for whatever reason, do a better job than me, I'll work my ass off to elect him or her," he says. But "if it turns out that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run." He's been mulling the question all year as he bounds across the country. A longtime friend of Sanders's characterizes his position as, "At this point, what does he have to lose?"

Never mind, of course, what we all might have to lose if Sanders pulls the same shit this time that he did last time around.

There is a lot at the link, but let me just address this single point, evident in the two paragraphs excerpted above: Bernie Sanders will always hate the Democrats for being a party that recognizes we don't live in a homogenous country with broad agreement on what should constitute our social contract. He insists on believing, like all the other left-wing dipshits who spout the same nonsense, that Americans are all in basic agreement on the role of the federal government; it's just that people voting for Republicans haven't encountered their great ideas.

That is simply incorrect. Wildly so.

And Sanders' refusal to get outside that bubble of intransigent belief makes him unfit to lead the nation. He doesn't understand the first goddamn thing about the nation he ostensibly wants to lead, which is that we are fundamentally not a nation of leftists and future leftists, but a nation with profound ideological differences that are further exacerbated by extreme religious differences, violent bigotries, regional idiosyncrasies, and a political system that is unjust as it is entrenched.

Sanders hasn't spent enough time outside Vermont, off of stages in front of adoring fans. He doesn't know this country. And his stubborn refusal to admit he doesn't have all the answers means he never will.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!